Healing the body and the land on Lake Chapala, Mexico
Faced with a public health crisis due to kidney disease in the region, a group of women organized in Agua Caliente – on the shores of Mexico’s largest lake, Chapala, in the municipality of Poncitlán, Jalisco – to launch a community garden of medicinal plants. Although there are factors beyond their control, these women are counting on their collective organization around a budding agroecology project, to help them care for their health.
Oaxaca Mural Documents Struggle to Defend Native Corn
In a noisy entrance to one of the oldest markets in Oaxaca City, not far from one of the sites where corn culture originated 9,000 years ago, muralist Mariel García stood on a scaffold in the hot sun for three weeks and painted her heart out. The mural she was creating, more than a year […]
Agroecology Center revalues agriculture - and culture - in Oaxaca
Ixtepec, Oaxaca – It is morning, and the sun’s rays have barely come out. And at the Santa Cruz Agroecological and Cultural Center, an independent space located in the Zapata neighborhood in Ixtepec, Oaxaca, there is already a bustle of girls and boys eager to learn how to make compost, plant a garden and care […]
Tikkun Eco Center : Spreading seeds of change
SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, MÉXICO – Victoria Collier and Ben Ptashnik are a couple with a vision: they want to teach how to create self-sustaining ecological community where people can grow food, disengage from destructive systems with the use of renewable energy and green building, and create community projects that benefit everyone while raising the […]
Planting Agroecology in the Sacred Desert of Wirikuta
I was witnessing the first stone in a long-term project that seeks to restore and regenerate the desert in what many have come to call the “botanical garden” of Wirikuta. And as I watched this dream come to life, I was reminded of the symbolic Candles of Life, renovated every year in the pilgrimages carried out by the Wixárika people for whom this land holds a central place in their cosmology.
Mexico scores historic legal victory in defense of native corn
The Supreme Court of Mexico announced two decisions that protect the human right to corn biodiversity — banning permits to sow genetically modified corn in Mexico. That right was challenged in court by the transnationals Bayer-Monsanto, Syngenta, Pioneer-Dupont, and Dow Agrosciences.
Winona LaDuke: Return to Rice Lake
It’s Rice Lake Village on the White Earth Reservation – at the site of the mother lode of wild rice, Lower Rice Lake. Lew Murray stands in front of the gathering — about 200 or so people.
Native hemp farming, opportunity to lead New Green Revolution
This fall, when we bring in the sheaves, they will be of hemp. Then we’ll have a harvest hoedown to follow up.
Mexico Makes Strides in Agroecology
Sept. 8, 2016, was a tragic day. At a massive event on that day, Enrique Peña Nieto, president of the country, dramatically announced that he was a daily consumer of Coca~Cola. His words were celebrated with applause and laughter by businessmen and officials who listened to him; meanwhile, 6.4 million citizens were suffering from diabetes, […]
The Plot Thickens in Mexico's Glyphosate War
Three of the greatest battles that humanity is fighting are: The Covid-19 pandemic; The climate crisis, which increasingly threatens the survival of the species; and Gigantic areas of GM soy, corn, cotton and glyphosate, the poison that accompanies them, planted in blood and fire by six powerful agri-food corporations. To give the reader an idea, here is […]
Putting the Heart Back in the Valley by Putting the Fire Back in the Ground
“Restoration of habitats and regenerative, localized food production need to be foundational in our economies moving forward. We should be turning resources towards these efforts with the same vigor the destruction and depletion was carried out with. Sucking the life out of our lands while polluting the water to grow human fodder void of nutrition […]
A Natural Alliance: Science + Indigenous Wisdom
The longest running successful experiments in sustainable human land use are found within the collectively held lands of traditional communities, who have lived for generations in balance with the ecosystems of their ancestral territories. Looking to Indigenous socio-ecological systems, traditional knowledge, and integrated interpretations of what “nature” is and how to live in balance with the natural […]
Breathing in the Time of Corona
As I write, the church bells across the plaza are clanging a noisy celebration of the rising sun; another day has begun here in Mexico, with the same alegría, the same joy as any other dawn. It’s equinox, and I’m reflecting on equilibrium. That quality that allows us to hold fast onto the delight in […]
Protecting our Guardians in Oaxaca
It was an unusual Calenda (traditional procession) even for Oaxaca, a city used to these colorful, musical and boisterous parades often led by giant puppets (monos) and a marching band for weddings, quinceañeras, and religious observances. This specific Calenda was dedicated to the protection of the guardians of native corn, to defenders of ecological diversity, […]
Milpa in Mexico: Defending a Way of Life
Defending the native corn is a matter of life or death. To say that we are a people of corn is not a pretty metaphor, but rather, it is the state of things. Our life is associated with corn, and not just as a source of food. It defines a way of life and an affirmation of our relationship with Mother Earth.
Regenerating Agriculture, Regenerating Communities
Don Manuel García Pacheco stands at the edge of the field he has known since his birth more than six decades ago, when the land was plowed by oxen. He smiles broadly as he surveys the industrious crew that has come from all over the world to work in his cornfield. “Estoy feliz como un lombriz,” he declares in typical campesino parlance – I’m happy as an earthworm.
Heathy Children, Healthy Future in Ecuador
Indigenous Kañaris place the child at the center of the Andean world
Lyla June on the Forest as Farm
Science reveals that ancient foodscapes were cutting-edge regenerative agriculture
Lyla June on Renovating Native Foodways as a Path to Sovereignty
Lino Pichasaca and I walked the rough footpaths, the chakiñanes in Kichwa, around the Hacienda Guantug in the province of Cañar, Ecuador. It was 1967, and the Ecuadorian agrarian reform was getting started. Leaders like Lino saw great possibilities and huge obstacles.
Campesino Past, Biodynamic Future
Gaby Gonzalez is a soil scientist, an architect and a third-generation Mexican farmer, descended from a proud campesino grandfather and schooled by her father in the ways of modern industrial agriculture, an approach she found seriously flawed. The lessons she learned from both of them found a new meaning when she discovered biodynamic agriculture. Last […]
Restoring the Earth, One Camp at a Time
Over the past 150 years, poor land management practices, driven by industrial agriculture, has resulted in the loss of half of the earth’s topsoil. Soil is becoming so degraded that some scientists are predicting that in some parts of the world, such as the UK, we only have 60 harvests left. More carbon has been […]
Editor’s note: One of my most inspiring assignments so far this year brought together two important movements for the healing of the Earth: the first Ecosystem Restoration Camp in the Americas, and Vía Orgánica, the host organization. I went on to write about them both for Mongabay Latin America and the brand-new issue of Permaculture […]
Restoring Paradise: Permaculture Meets Disaster Response
As permaculture educator and community organizer Matthew Trumm was evacuating from the raging Camp Fire in Northern California last November, his mind turned to a video he’d seen recently with one of his heroes, the ecosystem restoration expert and filmmaker John D. Liu. Just the week before, Liu had invited him to serve on a […]
Dismantling the Patrix with EcoSocial Design
Andrew Langford has been practising the art of hands-on learning since his early days in manufacturing, and then in his first solo enterprise as a shoemaker. He came to formal university education a bit late, and perhaps that’s why he was able to look at it more objectively than his younger counterparts. It was while […]
San Antonino Castillo Velasco, Oaxaca, Mexico — Twelve years ago in the verdant Ocotlán Valley of Mexico, a group of men and women of Zapotec origin watched as their crops of vegetables and flowers began to wither away. A long drought seemed destined to turn their fertile valley into a desert area. But through a […]
Review by Ana Ruiz Photos by Tracy L. Barnett ZIPOLITE, OAXACA – Nine actors emerge as bats, bees, butterflies and wild felines, pollinating and controlling crop pests as they weave a fabulous dance into the web of life. Monsanto suddenly steps onto the stage, depicted as a fat man with a briefcase and a sprayer, […]
Phil Moore and Lauren Simpson Permaculture People Editor’s note: We are very happy to share with you the third short film, Regenerative Agriculture: Rebuilding the Soil, in Lauren and Phil’s new documentary film series Living with the Land for Permaculture Magazine. Sitting atop the hills in southwest England overlooking the sea, Village Farm in Devon is a […]
Igniting regeneration. A Latin American Permaculture Convergence in Colombia
Story and photos by Ivan Kuxan Suum Ancient Futures Lead photo by Adrian Felipe Pera The recent Latin American Permaculture Convergence (or CLAP ) was held from the 15th to the 21st of June in Varsana Ecovillage south of Bogota, Colombia. For five consecutive days the different open-air and indoor spaces of the host community hosted a buzzing […]
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